Man Ray was born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. in 1890. Born Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchampon July 28, 1887 in Upper Normandy region of France, the grandson of a painter, Marcel Duchamp would have an immense impact on twentieth-century and twenty first-century art. The arguments and jabs go on to this day about photography being for artists with no talent, photography isn’t fine art, anyone can do it…someone wrote to me and said I should write about real art for a change. That’s so DADA.

“In 1915 he was introduced to Marcel Duchamp, who would become a lifelong friend and influence; he subsequently moved to Paris, practicing there for over 20 years.” – Artsy

“In 1919, Duchamp made a parody of the Mona Lisa by adorning a cheap reproduction of the painting with a mustache and goatee. To this he added the inscription L.H.O.O.Q., a phonetic game which, when read out loud in French quickly sounds like “Elle a chaud au cul”. This can be translated as “She has a hot ass”, implying that the woman in the painting is in a state of sexual excitement and availability. It may also have been intended as a Freudian joke, referring to Leonardo da Vinci‘s alleged homosexuality. Duchamp gave a “loose” translation of L.H.O.O.Q. as “there is fire down below” in a late interview with Arturo Schwarz. According to Rhonda Roland Shearer, the apparent Mona Lisa reproduction is in fact a copy modeled partly on Duchamp’s own face. Research published by Shearer also speculates that Duchamp himself may have created some of the objects which he claimed to be “found objects”. – Wikipedia

“The source for the fraternal friendship that linked the two men is to be found in their shared freedom and independence of spirit. Aside from a passion for chess, they shared a taste for the subversive and an irresistible desire to invent. Intellectually, their processes were similar. As art terrorists, they both knew how to place mines under artistic conventions, and their works, without being similar, nevertheless responded to the other.” – DADA Companion

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“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask “how,” while others of a more curious nature will ask “why.” Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
-Man Ray